Yes, President Bush’s nomination of Judge Charles W. Pickering, Sr., of
Mississippi to a lifetime appointment to the U.S. Court of Appeals was blocked
by your fellow Democrats who serve on the Judiciary Committee. I see you think
it is wrong for them to do so, and that if you were on Judiciary you would not
only vote to recommend him to the full Senate for confirmation, but would
happily vote to confirm. That’s clear enough and I appreciate your honesty
in that regard, as I agree completely with you on all counts. Pickering seems
to be a worthy man and the arguments raised against him on qualifications and
track record seem frivolous. What I really appreciated, watching you on FoxNewsSunday,
was hearing you DEFENDyour fellow Democrats! Brit Hume thought he saw
a way to drive a wedge between you and your colleagues, but you insisted they
had every right to take the action they did, and that you believed they did it
in good conscience, but not in a vengeful, “payback” way, and not to
impose a litmus test on federal judgeships.

The reason Pickering has been rejected is that the Democrats in Judiciary have
the votes to do so. As far as I can see, Judge Pickering is a fine man and has
a good record on civil rights, and if he did not, Senate Minority Leader Trent
Lott would not have advanced the nomination. There has been a great deal of
talk about precedence, other nominations in the past either being voted
down and yet reported to the Senate floor, or not. But all that discussion
means very little when compared to the results of the 2000 election. Yes, the
Republicans retained control of the House of Representatives by a handful of
votes, but the House is not involved at all in the judicial confirmation
process. The role is reserved for the Senate, and while the electorate
technically voted control to the Republicans, Senator Jim Jeffords switched
parties when he was mishandled by the party leadership. I was not happy to see
him switch parties, but I could see why he did, and decided that the GOP had
to live with the result. When it comes to the 2000 presidential race is where
I come down on your side. President Bush did not get a mandate to do much of
anything when he lost the popular vote by a significant margin and won the
electoral vote by a decision of the U.S. Supreme Court.

What I mean to say, Senator, is that the razor thin margin by which George W.
Bush was elected President, courtesy of the voters and the help of the Supreme
Court, requires that he be scrupulously careful in selecting federal judges at
every level of the court system. When Senator Don Nickles points out that
Republicans supported President Bill Clinton and confirmed a big bunch of
judges in his first two years, he failed to point out that Clinton won the
presidency by a very comfortable margin over the incumbent President George
Bush, Sr. When it is pointed out that President Reagan had his judges
confirmed, it should be pointed out that he won in 1980 by a good margin and
that the Senate, which confirms judges, went to the Republicans by a very big
swing. The voters clearly wanted the kinds of judges President Reagan was
nominating. The same is true of President Clinton’s nominees, only one of
whom was not confirmed, for good reason it appeared to me.

If I were President Bush, I would let the Pickering nomination lie, and not
nominate another man or woman to the Court of Appeals in that district. We are
close enough to the congressional elections to see how they come out before a
decision has to be made on that count. If Republicans win control of the
Senate, they can organize and the Judiciary Committee will quickly send the
Pickering nomination to the Senate floor and he will be confirmed. If the
Democrats retain control of the Senate, the Pickering nomination will expire.
It will not mean that the political process works poorly because a good man is
nominated and not confirmed, for partisan reasons. Partisan reasons are
important. Voters who are the bedrock of the system are the most partisan, the
foundations of the two-party system. Other independent voters provide the
bottom line, but the bedrock is critical, and in that light I can truly
appreciate your sound defense of the Judiciary Democrats on the Pickering
nomination, even though you and I disagree with it on the merits.